Roy Keane – Respected Rooney because he hid a remote control? We think not!
Wayne Rooney appeared on the Monday Night Football in a practice run for something he may choose to take up once he retires from playing the game.
With fellow Liverpudlian and Everton fan, Jamie Carragher, as the other half of this double act, Rooney regaled us with tales of a long and relatively successful career when he had, at times, made the wrong choices and once even stood up to Roy Keane.
The tale about Keane was decidedly iffy as changing the channel on television then hiding the remote control seems to be a particularly childish act for a grown man and, just because Keane happened to be watching the previous channel, isn’t really standing up to him.
Standing up to him would have been NOT hiding the remote control and refusing to hand it over.
Despìte the fact that the scousers, along with the Americans. can be held responsible for the attempted destruction of the English language, Rooney acquitted himself quite well.
However, our spots remain unchanged and the comparisons drawn are with other ex-football playing pundits, some of whom have difficulty forming a sentence whilst others would have been perfect for the “silent era” films.
Antother factor is that the bar is now considerably lower than it would have been at say, the BBC, fifty years ago.
Granted they are very knowledgeable when it comes to the game of football but so they should be! Plumbers know a fair bit about plumbing when they have been at it for fifteen or twenty years!
In the snobby, pre-satellite days of BBC and ITV, football originally aired without pundits and the “experts” were just those commentating on the game.
David Coleman – Probably the most famous presenter of “Match of the Day”
They very quickly proved that they weren’t experts so the TV companies began interviewing managers after the games. They then started inviting managers into the studio to comment on the games and characters such as Brian Clough, Jock Stein and Jackie Charlton would be quizzed by Brian Moore or David Coleman about the day’s football.
It was to be a few years later before players were invited to comment by TV.
As there was very little live football back then, these conversations about the game would be had in the TV studio during and after Match Of The Day, so all of the days games would be discussed but, usually, a maximum of three highlighted matches would be shown.
Once Sky appeared on the scene, of course, everything changed. Football is now truly global and there are cameras at every game in the UK.
This has created many jobs for presenters, pundits and reporters and Sky TV is not too fussy about the qualifications of those they employ.
Ex professional players were brought in to discuss the live matches both at the game and in the studio and coverage really became what it is today.
The Sun – With another of it’s pathetic attempts at humour
We have, on several occasions, compared Sky Sports News to The Sun newspaper. This is not meant to be flattering in any way, shape or form. The Sun is a pretty comical and often despicable publication which will publish absolutely anything it thinks will sell a newspaper.
Sky has not reached the “despicable” depths of The Sun but, like it’s tabloid equivalent, is quick to report trivia, hearsay, rumours, and every now and then, stories which one would politely describe as “pure invention”. Still, what more is to be expected of a programme which repeats itself every fifteen minutes and has any given headline “breaking” for days?
When all said and done, television football coverage is now excellent and that is mainly thanks to Sky and their innovative ideas when still in their infancy.
All of the games shown have cameras in all of the right places and the replays are very quick to show how easy it is for a referee to make the wrong decision!
Live TV is also, unfortunately, very quick and very good at showing up certain people to be the idiots everybody thought they were beforehand.
Should Wayne Rooney decide on a career with Sky or BT once he hangs up his boots he will, no doubt, be far better than some of the current pundits but, on the other hand, he will also be a long way behind the better ones.
Fortunately for him and unfortunately for the viewer the “better ones” can be counted on the fingers of one hand, (the thumb, for the purpose of this exercise, is not considered to be a finger).
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 
On the whole professional sports MEN should not be given a microphone or appear before a TV camera prior to the age of 30, and definitely no social media prior to age 70. They also need to speak understandable, grammatically correct English. I’m now speaking about those whose first language is English. Foreigners can be afforded some leeway.
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